by Robb, J. D.
“No one’s approval matters as yours does,” Summerset said. “I assume you didn’t disappoint her.”
“Not only didn’t Eve disappoint Mavis, she found exactly the right tone and right words to convince Peabody and McNab to take the rental.”
“That’s a fine thing for all of them.” He inclined his head toward Eve. “Well done, Lieutenant.”
“You’d be right at home there, skulking around the haunted wallpaper, baking in the kitchen from hell.”
Because she wanted to set up her board, she left the insults there. She tossed the topper over the newel post and started upstairs with the cat bounding up beside her.
“Interesting. There’s devil’s food cake—but I didn’t bake it in the kitchen from hell.”
That got a laugh out of Roarke as he went upstairs.
“Why do they call it devil’s food cake?” Eve demanded. “How does anyone know if the devil eats cake, and, if he does, is he only allowed one kind? I don’t think so. I say the devil eats whatever he damn well pleases.”
Adoring her, Roarke gave her butt a pat. “I can truthfully say I’ve never given the matter any thought. Let’s raise a glass to the five-point-whatever in their new home.”
“They won’t be living there for months.”
“Regardless.”
He walked into her office, straight to the panel that opened to a generous wine rack.
Not to play favorites, Galahad gave Roarke’s leg a rub before leaping to the sleep chair.
He chose a bottle, opened it, then poured two glasses.
“To friends,” he said as he handed Eve hers, “who are family.”
“Yeah, that’s a good one.” She tapped her glass to his. “But I still have to work.”
“Understood. Why don’t you set up your board, as you won’t enjoy a meal until you have. I’ll take a look at this trust.”
“I don’t know who set it up. I only have what Shelby told me.”
“And what she told you, and you told me, is enough. Set up your board and book, then we’ll have a meal.”
She set up her board while he worked in his adjoining office. After circling it a couple of times, making an adjustment or two, she settled into her command center.
She opened operations, and copied her book to date.
She grabbed her ’link when she saw Baxter on the readout.
“Dallas. What’ve you got?”
“Shoe envy. Not for the type she’s got, but the number. I can tell you Shoe Hoarder Huffman liked to live and dress in style. Under her clothes, too. A whole bunch of sexies. I believe my esteemed partner developed a permanent blush.
“She keeps a selection of high-end vibrators, but tucked away from curious eyes. But,” he said just as Eve figured the search hit bust, “we got her ’link.”
“The one she said she ditched?”
“She did ditch it—in her kitchen recycler. It’s dinged up, but she didn’t run a full cycle—and we got to it before it ran the auto. Still too crunched for us to access anything.”
“You need to get that to EDD.”
“Already there. Dinged up, like I said, with some bites out of it, but they should be able to get something.”
“That’s good. That’s gold. What else?”
“No drop ’links, nothing on her comp or tablet that popped out, but they’re in EDD now. The second bedroom’s set up as an office, but she clearly doesn’t do much in it. Plenty of sparkles in a safe, along with some cash, and a safe deposit box key.”
“We’ll check on that.”
Roarke walked in, signaled her to continue as he went into the kitchen.
“It’s in Evidence. I’m going to say that she lives cold. You can have the sparkles, the shoes, a closet full of high-end wear, and still live cold.”
“Cold suits her.”
“It must. But the possible payoff? Tucked away with the vibrators she had a small, unmarked bottle. As it wasn’t labeled, it’s not prescription or OTC.”
“Illegals?”
“That’d be my guess, boss. And since it was tucked with her sex stuff, I’m figuring sex illegals. I didn’t want to risk opening it, so we dropped it at the lab.”
“Good. I’ll check on it.”
“My boy Trueheart’s writing out the full report, then we’re heading out for a brew.”
“You earned it. Thanks.”
“All in a day’s, Dallas. The woman has a good fifty pairs of shoes that haven’t been worn. I stand and salute.”
“That’s just sad,” Eve said, and cut him off.
She sat back, considering, as Roarke came back with two covered plates.
“Shoes and vibrators.”
That stopped him. “Sorry?”
“Gwen Huffman’s place. Baxter admires her many shoes, reports she has a collection of vibrators tucked away—and a lot of sexy underwear.”
“None of that sounds murderous or illegal.”
“They recovered her old ’link from her recycler, so once EDD gets inside and recovers, maybe some murderous.”
“How damaged?”
She shrugged. “Don’t know yet, but maybe they’ll recover any communications she made on the way home from Ariel Byrd’s. And Baxter found an unmarked bottle of as-yet-unidentified liquid squirreled away with her sex stuff.”
“Ah, well then, that may be illegals. Come, bring the wine you’ve barely touched, and eat.”
“Shelby said Huffman was sexually aggressive, and I’m betting that hasn’t changed. Sexy underwear, no surprise. Vibrators, well, a girl’s gotta do. But if that’s a sex illegal, who’s it for? The desk clerks—we checked with all of them and none recognized Ariel Byrd. She hasn’t been to Huffman’s apartment.”
“Perhaps she had yet another lover.”
“Possible,” Eve conceded.
She discovered they had roast chicken with some sort of herb stuff, slices of potatoes in a light creamy sauce and more herb stuff, and asparagus.
It all smelled pretty damn good. After a bite of chicken she decided it tasted the same.
“What if she uses it herself? Men don’t get her revved, but she’s got this fiancé. He wants some touch, so she needs the substance to get revved to have sex with him.”
“Well, that would be a sad state of affairs—pun intended—wouldn’t it now? Then again, the financial payoff’s considerable.”
“How considerable?” She poked her fork in the air. “You got it already?”
“It wasn’t much of a challenge. As her father stands as trustee, and has disinherited his son, the daughter gets the whole pie.”
“How big’s the pie?”
“When she marries—and it does specify she marries a male, a Caucasian male, an American-born citizen, and one approved by the trustee—she receives one hundred million.”
Pleased, Eve stabbed some chicken. “That’s a pretty big pie.”
“Until the time she marries, as specified, she gets much smaller slices of said pie. If and when she conceives—and delivers a child—within that marriage, she gets another hundred million.”
Eve took a small sip of her wine. “It sounds like a really big bribe.”
“It’s precisely that. Right now, she receives a biannual income from the trust. It’s generous, but, at six million annually, paltry in comparison. And if she doesn’t marry by the age of thirty-five, the income is cut off.”
“So, she comes by her manipulative streak honestly. And if she deviates from white, male, American?”
“The trust closes down, the income stops.”
“He may be worse than she is,” Eve remarked. “I haven’t done a deep dive on him yet. That’s next. Speculate,” she invited. “Does Merit Caine know about these terms?”
“Unlikely.”
As she thought it through, Eve ate some more, took another sip of wine. “She’s taking big risks—seeking out at least one lover could cost her that pie. And I’m betting more. A sexually aggressive, self-absorbed wom
an? A bunch of vibrators isn’t going to do it for her. She needs admiration, excitement. She knew about the trust way back when she was a teenager and hooked up with Shelby. The risks are part of the excitement. But she’s going to pick lovers outside of her own social pool, her stomping grounds. Why be stupid?”
“So a West Village artist.”
“Yeah, away from the Upper East Side, outside her social strata. She wouldn’t want to run into an ex at the next gala. Lots to play with here,” she decided, and speared some asparagus.
And decided to table murder for a few minutes.
“How come that house was so dingy and neglected? It’s prime real estate—even I know that.”
“The owners relocated, with the in-laws, to New Mexico for the warmer, drier climate. Some health issues, and the owners’ daughter had moved there with her husband, and had children. They’d hoped to keep the property in the family, but their son didn’t want it, and lives—for several years now—in London.”
“So why not sell?”
“Sentiment. They thought to split time between New Mexico and New York, but it simply didn’t work. The health issues, the difficulty of the in-laws traveling. In any case, with one thing and another, several years passed, and they finally accepted they had to let it go.”
“So they finally put it on the market.”
“Actually, no. I know the son in London, and he contacted me. He hoped I’d take a look at it, and consider buying it, making the necessary fixes—as he’d come out to take a look a few months ago and realized how, well, sad it had become.”
“Mega sad,” Eve recalled. “What did he think you’d do with it?”
“Sell it or rent it out, which I would have done—the renting out part, as it’s too much of a jewel to sell. At least straight off. The only stipulation his parents had was that a family would live in it. He understood that couldn’t be legally binding, but he hoped I’d respect their wishes.”
“Now there will be.”
“And now there will be.” He topped off his wine, but Eve shook her head when he offered to do the same with hers. “I think you’ll enjoy this part of it. My acquaintance’s mother had some reservations about some performer and fashion designer living in the house where she’d been raised, where she raised her children.”
Eve’s back went straight up. “Getting pretty damn picky.”
“Sentiment and family homes. Strong things they are. Mavis tagged her up, had quite the conversation, apparently with Bella chiming in. Needless to say, the woman was completely charmed, and is now happy indeed that this family would live in the home she’d loved. There were tears, I’m told, on all sides.”
“One of those—what did you call it?—lovely turns in life.”
“Yes.”
Eve glanced back at the board. “Now I have to get back to an unhappy one. Do you have work?”
“A bit of this and that.”
“If you have time between this and that, do you want to run Huffman’s brother? I don’t see him in this, but I’m curious about him.”
“More fun for me. Cake?”
“Cake? Shit, I forgot about the cake. Now I’m too full for cake.”
“Later then. No, I’ve less to do tonight than you. I’ll see to the dishes.”
“I owe you.”
They rose, and he stepped to her. He brushed his hands through her hair, then skimmed a finger down the narrow dent in her chin. “I’ll collect,” he said, and kissed her like a man who meant it.
Jan Shelby kept her tiny apartment squared away. Though an organized soul by nature, she essentially lived in one room. More than two things out of place at a time?
Chaos.
She’d inherited her small, navy-blue convertible sofa from an aunt, her forest-green chair from a cousin. She used her mother’s ancient kitchen table—and sometimes actually ate a meal there. It had two mismatched chairs she—in a spurt of spatial improvement—painted navy and green.
Because it was cheaper and easier than painting the walls—the color of slowly decaying flesh—she hung signs she’d found in thrift shops. SLIPPERY WHEN WET, HELP WANTED, NO VACANCIES.
She’d never considered herself a quirky sort, but the signs amused her.
Since she had a free evening, she made herself some pasta, cracked a brew, and settled in to read on her tablet while she ate.
As far as she was concerned, the sounds of the city banging up to her second-story windows ranked as music. She loved the sounds of New York.
Since her unit didn’t rate a dishwasher, she washed and dried her dishes, put them away.
She was on the point of pulling out her sofa bed, stretching out to spend the rest of the evening watching something fun and easy on-screen, when her buzzer sounded.
She flipped the switch. “Yeah?”
“Oh, Jan! Thank God you’re home. Buzz me up.”
Maybe it was small, maybe it was petty, but Shelby went with it. “Who is this?”
“January, it’s Gwen.”
She said, “Oh.” And waited two full beats before releasing the street-level door.
She went into her skinny bathroom to check out her face in the mirror over the palm-size sink.
Good enough, she decided, especially with the hair. The hair rocked. And a woman was damn well entitled to a little vanity when her first lover paid a call.
Maybe she had pulled on her POLICE ACADEMY sweatshirt in anticipation of this particular visit. A good way to remind everyone just who January Shelby was.
She took her time answering the knock, then angled to block Gwen from just strolling in.
She’d changed clothes, Shelby noted, into what she calculated Gwen saw as down-market and friendly. Distressed designer jeans and a silky white T-shirt with a thin leather jacket the color of buttermilk.
“How’d you find my apartment? Cops’ addresses aren’t public.”
“I had to call your cousin Laurie, then she chatted at me for twenty minutes. Aren’t you going to ask me in?”
“Sure, come on in.”
Shelby closed the door, giving Gwen a minute (all it took) to look around the apartment. A cheap apartment, cheaply furnished, Shelby thought.
But hers.
“Isn’t this … cozy,” Gwen said in a tone that turned the word cozy into two words: a dump.
“It works for me. What brings you here, Gwen?”
“Oh, Jan! Everything is awful.” The slow, beautiful tears spilled as she pressed fingers to her trembling lips. “That—that insane Lieutenant Dallas arrested me! I spent hours in a cell because she has some sort of vendetta against me.”
“Lieutenant Dallas is one of the most, if not the most, respected officers in the NYPSD.”
“Why? Because she married some filthy rich Irishman?”
“No.” Shelby bit back the vitriol that sprang to her tongue. “Not at all.”
“You don’t understand what she’s done to me, how she treated me. She ruined my life!”
Gwen lurched forward to throw herself into Shelby’s arms, a maneuver Shelby blocked by taking Gwen’s elbow. She steered her to the chair.
“Sit down. I’ll get you a glass of water.”
“God, I don’t want water! Do you have anything to drink?”
No way she was wasting any of her meager supply of adult beverages. “Water, coffee, off-brand ginger ale.”
“Never mind, never mind.” Gwen covered her face with her hands. “I need help. I needed to come to someone who knows me, who’d understand.”
“Understand what?” Shelby asked as she took a seat on the sofa.
“That I couldn’t do all these terrible things. I had to post bail. Oh my God, when it gets out …”
“What are the charges?”
“She said I lied during interview.”
“Did you?”
“I was afraid! I was in shock.” She dropped her hands, then held them out in a plea. “I barely knew what I was saying.”
“Is that t
he only charge?”
“She trumped up others.” As if they were gnats, Gwen waved them away. “Leaving the scene of a crime, destroying evidence.”
“Did you leave the crime scene?”
“Jan! I found a dead body. I ran. Anybody would. I was so shocked, I just ran.”
“And destroying evidence?”
“I bought a new ’link. People buy new ’links all the time and toss their old ones. How is that a crime?”
Leaving out the key card, Shelby thought.
Shelby frowned, shooting for sober and concerned. “Those are pretty serious charges, Gwen. Do you have a lawyer?”
“Not anymore.” The hand went back to her face. “Merit, my fiancé—he was representing me. He’s broken our engagement. He told me I need to get another lawyer.”
Shelby tried switching sober and concerned for sympathetic, and hoped she pulled it off. “That’s rough.”
“I don’t know what to do, don’t know where to turn. That woman, that horrible woman threatened to charge me with Ariel’s murder. My God, Jan, my God. You know I couldn’t kill anyone.”
“Who was the victim to you?”
“She was a friend, and …” Straightening, Gwen dashed at tears. “We became close, and she wanted more. I know it was wrong, a mistake. I was unfaithful to Merit, but I had feelings for her.”
“You had an affair with her.”
“We had a relationship, one I believed was harmless, where both of us understood it couldn’t be more. But she suddenly demanded more. I told that woman Ariel and I had an argument that night, and I left. I went home. She had my building’s security feed proving I did, and I stayed home, but she’s trying to twist it all up. And now I’ve lost everything. You know how my parents are. They could cut me off like they did Trace unless I can convince them this is all a terrible mistake. And it is!”
“If you left, and stayed home, I don’t see how you left a crime scene.”
“I went back in the morning, just to talk to her—to Ariel—calmly. That’s when I found her. I just ran. I couldn’t think. I had to protect myself.”
Shelby let her eyes open wide. “You didn’t report the murder?”
“I did. I did! After I got home, and—and could think clearly again. And I could hardly tell the police I was in a relationship with Ariel with Merit right there. I knew he wouldn’t understand, that he’d turn away from me. And I was right.”